Live camera on B.C. railway museum draws worldwide viewers

Last fall Virtual Railfan approached Laura Young, executive director at the museum, about installing a live camera facing the railway on the outside of their building.

“We thought, ‘what a wonderful marketing opportunity for us and what a great way to also showcase Revelstoke to a bunch of people who didn’t know about us’,” Young said.

Though Virtual Railfan operates on subscriptions, the live feed can also be accessed on Youtube and through the Railway Museum’s webpage.

“It’s been really well received,” Young said.

The last report she saw from Railfan said the feed was watched something ridiculous like 400,000 times in the first 25 days from 136 different countries, “or something like that”.

“I was speaking to a gentleman this morning, he’s a friend of the museum and he lives down in Texas, and he was like ‘oh ya I watch 15-20 minutes every morning, check out what is going on’,” she said.

Young is hoping that the live feed will bring more tourists to Revelstoke and to the museum as Railfan has a following of people that apparently travel around the world visiting places that have cameras.

“I think it is just another interesting way that technology has made places like Revelstoke more accessible,” Young said.

Virtual Railfan has 54 cameras in 33 locations in four countries around the world. The camera in Revelstoke is the first in Canada.